A man was given a tour of both heaven and Hell so he could intelligently select his final destination. The devil was given first chance, so he started the “Prospect” with a tour of Hell. The first glance was a surprising one because all the occupants were seated at a banquet table loaded with every food imaginable, including meat from every corner of the globe, fruits and vegetables and every delicacy known to man.
With justification, the devil pointed out that no one could ask for more. However, when the man looked carefully at the people, he did not find a single smile. There was no indication of gaiety generally associated with such a feast. The people at the table looked dull and listless and were literally skin and bones.
The tourist noticed that each person had a fork strapped to the left arm and a knife strapped to the right arm. Each had a four-foot handle which made it impossible to eat. So, with food of every kind at their fingertips, they were starving.
Next stop was heaven, where the tourist saw a scene identical in every respect- same foods, knives and forks with those four-foot handles. However, the inhabitants of heaven were laughing, singing and having a great time. They were well fed and in excellent health.
The tourists were puzzled for a moment. He wondered how conditions could be so similar and yet produce different results. The people in heaven were well fed and happy while the people in Hell were starving and miserable.
Then, he saw the answer. Each person in Hell had been trying to feed himself. A knife and a fork with a four-foot handle made this impossible. Each person in Heaven was feeding the one across the table from and was being fed by the one sitting on the opposite side. By helping one another they helped themselves.
The message is clear. The way you see situations and people is extremely important because you treat people and situations exactly as you see them. That’s one reason I keep reminding my teeming readers that you can get everything in life you want if you help enough other people get what they want.
When we understand the behaviour patterns that are created by our instincts, it is significantly easier for us to make conscious and rational choices about how much we will allow our instincts to guide our behaviour and our thinking.
Knowledge is power. When we understand our instincts, when we know what they are and when we know how they work, then we can make personal choices as individual without a toss-up.
Countless times we experience a sort of indecision, a situation in which we allow friends or even relatives to decide and decipher the situation for us and such a decision could either bring a positive or a negative result.
We obey their decision in order not to fall into the “Had I known” situation. Even if we adhere to their instruction, why not engage in rational thinking first on the issue before taking or arriving at a final conclusion on the issue?
Rational thinking is the set of thought processes that we each use at a functionally intellectual level to help us figure out and understand the world we live in. We can use our intellect to make decisions about how we will interact with the world around us and we can use our intellect to choose the values and the beliefs that we all use to guide our behaviours and our lives.
In conclusion, our intellect actually gives us a tool to make individual and collective behavioural choices and in tandem with the above, I am of the opinion that we should rather learn to lead and not to be led.
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